The Fury of Angels The Wrath of Beasts
by syrrah
Summary: A host of angels has appeared in the skies above Morocco and people are jubilant. But in the Elsewhere, the Otherworld where the angels came from, a rebel army prepares to follow and wage war. Because contrary to long-held opinion, the angels are NOT the good guys. Karou is chimaera, Akiva is seraph, and if they survive this war they still have their own conflict to face
1. Chapter 1

I love, love, love these two books and you should too! Warning: spoilers for Days of Blood and Starlight, if you haven't read it yet.

If you haven't read either of them - do it!

This story is set five minutes after the end of Days of Blood and Starlight. It's what I want to happen...

**The Fury of Angels and the Wrath of Beasts**

Karou is restless, her skin too tight, her blood too fast, her muscles wanting to run or jump or _something_, her head wanting to escape out of itself. She's known the eve of battle before, back in the other time when she was Madrigal, but as Karou the tension lights little fires in her, undouseable and sleep-preventing.  
**  
**And none of that is helped by Akiva's presence. By Akiva's _regard_. She knows he watches her, because she watches him. Though her eyes look away, they return and tonight she simply doesn't have the will to stop them. This cave is darkness and shadows anyway - nothing in it is as splendid as him. The seraph with tiger eyes who tried to kill her, the man she fought on the ground and in the air. When her magic made him sick she took him to her home to recover. He had been a beautiful enigma to her, a face and body and spirit to fall in wonder with. But he was soldier in a war she'd never heard of that he sought to end. He had destroyed her family. Later she found he had sought to destroy her race. It should have destroyed her love for him.

But he is the bright flame watching her from yards away tonight, the leader of an army he has allied to hers. He has switched sides, and will fight his own people, for hers. If Karou is hope, Akiva is strength. Valor. Experience. Oh, and unbearably, he is heat. _Heat_.  
**  
**Karou would shy away from that even as it draws her. Tonight, with the prospect of the very sky falling in tomorrow morning, she is agitated beyond measure by Akiva's golden-eyed warmth. She needs to focus, draw in to herself. To one side of her Thiago appears at rest, graceful and disturbing even in repose. Zuzana has curled herself into Mik, with the tip of Issa's tail curving protectively over the two of them. Softness and slumber fill the cavern, sighs and snores as soldiers get much-needed sleep in preparation for the war ahead, but Karou's wakefulness denies sleep. Observed by Akiva, she can't stand the confines any more, and rises, walking to the entrance.  
**  
**Unknown to Karou, Thiago watches. Momentarily he considers following her. Not considers - he _will_ follow her, but before he can stand the angel has gone in her footsteps. An aching despair settles over the White Wolf, not that it hasn't been there ever since his transformation. Ziri made the decision in a blink, to give up being Kirin in order that the Chimaera would still have their leader, and he knows it was what he _had_ to do. But he hates this body. He abhors it with a loathing that makes him want to take a weapon to himself. The very least of it is that the Wolf is wingless. There is a greater strength in his lean, sleek size than there was in Ziri's former self, and there is grace too despite the extra weight, but Ziri is finding extreme difficulty in the loss of two limbs that have been a part of him for twenty-nine years. The frustration of being earthbound is probably helping him maintain the air of barely-veiled menace expected from Thiago. But he is the General of a flying army, going into battle against a flying enemy. What use is a savage and skilled warrior who cannot reach his foes? He will have to direct, shouting, from the ground.  
**  
**And without vanity, Ziri knows that he had been beautiful to Karou. Madrigal had been beautiful to him, and in his form Karou could see what she had been, _Before_. The dancer's gait, the elegance, the slenderness and height of the Kirin, living for the last time, in Ziri. He mourns the way Karou had sometimes gazed at him with a longing that was for her past self and her entire species, not him as an individual. But those soft and yearning glances served to nurture his gigantic hope that he could win her heart. She still looks at him with tenderness now, but she struggles to mask revulsion. Of all the bodies his soul could have been re-housed in, Ziri inhabits the body that once executed her. And on the dreadful, dreadful night of his own death and resurrection, this body had committed a further act of violence and degradation upon Karou. She has never spoken of it to Ziri, and he doesn't know any more than what he saw. Karou, half-naked, ferocious in rage, with bruises and blood streaming down over her, and her knife in Thiago's neck. _This_ body, the White Wolf's body, cast from her and collapsed, her blood in its mouth, deep tracks from her nails scouring its cheeks - and its weapon of hideous offence bared, exposed, out in the open. Maybe Thiago hadn't succeeded in raping Karou, maybe she'd managed to kill him first, but the egregious harm he'd intended was clear. Ziri's black misery is inextricable from the knowledge of what this body means to Karou. He will fight in the war, and he has no reason to want to live beyond it. Not unless Karou has the time to fashion him a new vessel, envelope, sleeve, so that this _monstrosity_ can be destroyed.

And how will Karou have the time, amongst bloodshed and carnage, to resurrect Ziri in a body acceptable?

It's cooler outside, on this fateful night, cold air wafting from the ice far below the shelf of the Kirin caves. Green, earthy scents come to Karou, oddly reassuring, reminding her of the home she lived in during her before. Seven years of her first life in this tranquil place until she was orphaned. Briefly, the peace of it surrounds her now as she sighs and walks towards the river.

She is followed. She knew she would be. Less than a minute has passed when her skin tells her Akiva is near.

"Karou?" his voice asks, as soft and deep as the night around. Before she broke the wishbone he'd told her she would hate him, and in her unknowing, that hatred was an impossibility. But he'd been right and for months her hate had sustained her, alongside her efforts to keep the Chimaera army replenished. As long as she hadn't seen him, she hated him. Yet it had taken little more than a single reappearance for that hate to become questionable, for her to realise in confusion that it co-existed with a love that was undeniable, essential. Elemental. She was _his_, simply. The chain of events the two of them had set off were catastrophic, but unintentional. He had slaughtered her people, she had built warriors from teeth and pain and magic to slaughter his. Blood was on both their hands. And on a dark, quiet night with nothing about it to foreshadow what would be a storm of unimaginable chaos within a matter of hours, Akiva stands beside her. He asks for nothing more than to be under the same sky, breathe the same air.

"Do you believe we have a chance?" she asks him, and she isn't sure if she means their depleted and makeshift army, or if she means herself, chimaera, and him, seraph.

"Yes, Karou. If I didn't I wouldn't be here," he answers gravely, and she doesn't know what he means either.

She's had enough of hate though, if they're to die tomorrow.

His wings have a glow all their own, and she's unaware of the light they cast on her face as she turns to him. Above them, Ellai watches and waits. Perhaps she has a blessing? They're secret lovers and assassins both, after all. But Akiva doesn't know Karou killed the leader of the Chimaera army, and Karous doesn't know Akiva killed the leader of the Seraph Host. The night is full of secrets.

"You asked me once to remember that you love me," Karou whispers, the goldenness from his wings lending a warmth to the paleness of her face.  
**  
**Akiva's breath catches, because yes, he did ask her that.

"Do you still?"

His answer is to place his hands on her shoulders, even though she might throw him from her. To slide one of them beneath her heavy hair, the other to her cheek. To frown searchingly into her black, black eyes, then let his glance slip to her mouth. To swallow heavily. To mutter, "Yes, Karou. As long as my heart beats, it beats for you."

Karou can't touch him, not properly, because she doesn't have her gloves. The palms of her hands are weapons which have wounded him again and again, and now will be no exception if she isn't careful. She's aware though that her words can hurt him too, as can her eyes. It occurs to her suddenly that he has never attacked her in the ways that she has attacked him. Swiftly, her arms are reaching high, as he is so tall, so that her hands meet one another behind his head. She can't pull him to her, which is what she wants to do, but with a quick inhalation he leans down. After the waves of loathing that have rolled off her directed at him for months, he's unsure enough that he holds himself back. Karou doesn't. She can't. They shared one kiss, back in Marrakesh, that set her on fire and left her empty and gasping when he ended it.

"Don't stop this time," she murmurs, as her mouth reaches for his.  
**  
**Akiva is powerless to deny her, to deny himself, as they connect. Sparks fly. The rightness of her texture and taste stop his breathing. She is his love Madrigal, but she is not. She is Karou, wild, fierce, magical, azure-haired Karou. Painfully thin in his arms, mouth alive under his, heart beating madly against his chest, he kisses her until his lungs cry, and he seizes air by moaning. What is she doing to him? What is she encouraging him to do to her?

In direct disobedience to her order, Akiva draws away. Karou appears to be giving herself to him, but he doesn't understand. He wants the words, the absolute. The truth. They're both afraid for the morning, knowing the impending bloodbath could rend asunder the human world. A thousand years of war on Eretz is a tragedy - to transport such conflict to an unsuspecting world is indefensible. But he wants Karou to be kissing him because she loves him, not because of the enormity of what they will undertake tomorrow.

"Please," he says, begging her to understand. "Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?"

"Akiva. Akiva._ Akiva_."

She says his name in his own language, she pronounces it in the Chimaeran voice, and lastly in Czech. "Brimstone is gone. Twiga too. And Kishmish. So many more of my kind, and look at your hands! They bear the marks of my losses, your victories. But war makes monsters of us all. I know you would wish every death undone. I know that you did what you did in the hope of bringing about peace. And when that peace didn't happen you assembled an army to lead against the warmongers because you believe in the possibility of a future that is just and unified and harmonious. We have the same goal, Akiva, and that exonerates me."

"Exonerates you?"

Her voice is quiet now, but her expression, her demeanour, everything about Karou declares her next words.

"Yes, because - because once I knew you were still alive, I would have come for you, eventually. Even though you were the enemy, and loving you made me hate myself. I know that I love you utterly, with all my soul. With everything, every particle that I am. It's alchemical, it's shattering, it's - "  
**  
**Akiva doesn't find out what else it is as Karou is on her toes, and his head dips. This time they don't connect so much as _collide_. Whatever words she's speaking go into his mouth rather than his ears, his heart rather than his brain. Madrigal is gone, Madrigal is here, Karou is Madrigal but she is not, she is Karou and she is a silken girl urging him to the ground, pulling him over her and wrapping all her limbs around him.

When he joins with her he is careful and gentle, not knowing. Karou is young, only seventeen. He's probably her first. When her body admits his easily and she evinces no indication of pain, he is the one who is hurt. But this takes place in a flash. His brain isn't disengaged from his body for very long, his thoughts separate from sensation for only moments. Karou undulates, with devastating surety, and an electricity of bliss jolts him.

And they are both gasping, joined until they fall apart. Love pleasure rapture pleasure love. Her body is different to the last time he felt this, but he is home.

As for Karou, she finds that what she shared with Kaz was inessential, as Brimstone had told her. Akiva makes her feel complete. There would be no more war anywhere, ever, if everyone knew what it was to feel like this. She raises herself over Akiva, hands pressed flat to the ground on either side of his head, his beautiful head, as she kisses him and coaxes him to her again. Her angel is willing, able, and wildly happy, hands at her hips not to guide her, just to _feel_.

Afterwards, dazed, drugged, they move to the river. Each of them wants to keep the scent of the other, but they're wary. The beast army, particularly their leader, will be disturbed that Beast Bane's odor is all over their resurrectionist. _All over._

Naked, Karou slips quietly into the water, and as quietly out again, her garments drying her as she slips into them.

"Karou," Akiva murmurs in a low tone barely louder than a thought, "There is something we must do. You or me, or both of us. If he's not killed in combat, we must kill Thiago."

And Akiva's heart nearly stops altogether in his chest as Karou's head whirls to face him, hair an ultramarine blaze in the light of two moons, whipped fast and falling over her shoulders.

"No!" she says urgently.

Shock makes him stammer.

"B - but - "

Years ago Thiago tortured Akiva and enjoyed it, but that isn't why Akiva wants him dead. It's because the marks of Thiago's brutal hands were on Karou only days ago. Once the White Wolf had her beheaded; recently he has physically abused her. For that, Akiva will put a blade through the Wolf's chest.

But Karou's head shakes. "No. No. He's too important."

_Important?_ That bloodthirsty, sadistic brute? Akiva thinks.

"In fact - " Karou continues, as the seraph strains to catch her voice. "I came out here to do something... You could help me. I need to tithe."

"Tithe?" he asks. "For what?"

Karou produces the little pouch attached to her belt and extracts simple instruments. Clamps. She pushes her sleeve up.

"No," Akiva says quickly. "Use me."

It will be quicker and easier if she does, because it will leave both her hands free, even though she doesn't want to hurt Akiva. But he has offered.

"This is for a wish, but it's not a small wish," she warns him as she makes ready.

"I would take any pain if it would prevent your suffering," is his reply.

When Brimstone performed this particular ritual he put the magic into coins, as metal can hold magic indefinitely. Karou hasn't any coins. However she picked up a pebble at the river's edge that was the right size, and it will have to do, since this magic will be used very soon. Akiva bears the pain without a sound, eyes steadfastly on hers as she takes what she needs to make magic of sufficient magnitude. When it's done, and the clamps put away again she kisses Akiva where she hurt him, on his arm. And where she hurt him more, over his heart. And then his perfect lips, which smile with her name.

They return to the cavern, his arm around her, but hers at her sides, despite her fervent wishing that it could be otherwise. Her hamsas debilitate him, though she would will that they didn't. He is _essential_. Her heart already knew it, though after the wishbone she fought the knowledge. Now her body knows it. There _is_ such a thing.

Probably everyone will be asleep, but just in case, Akiva conjures himself a glamor of invisibility, so that Karou appears alone. She lies next to Thiago, though careful that several yawning feet, chasms wide, fall between them. The softest glimmer suggests a false dawn at the other side of the cavern as a recumbent angel appears where there wasn't one a moment ago.

Nightmares have troubled Karou in the past, but they leave her in peace now, letting her drift, as Thiago lies wretched. His sensitive wolf nostrils can detect the trace of angel-scent lingering in her hair.

Early, early the next morning, Karou wakens Thiago with a nudge, beckoning him outside.

"I have something for you," she tells him under the pink sky.

"A pebble?" he asks, confused.

"A gavriel. Well, not exactly, but the best I could do under the circumstances."

Ziri wonders if a gavriel is strong enough to grant a wish that Karou would be safe. Or a wish that she would be safe _and_ that she would love him instead of Akiva.

But that is not why she made him a gavriel.

"A wish, Karou?" he says.

"I'll do it for you, Ziri," she whispers, eyes closing under the fan of inky lashes.

The next thing he knows, Ziri's shoulders itch and burn, his whole body shudders, and his back is burst open by pointed spines that project upwards then bend like elbows to sweep to his ankles. Linking the spines are membranes of leathery hide. The agony of his split skin bows his backbone in contortions until it settles into a dull ache, which is nothing to his new exhilaration.

"Oh, Karou! Karou," he exclaims, raising his wings and flexing them, exploring how they move and respond, what they can do. They can enfold a blue-haired girl who stands within their circle, her hands to the crook of his neck.

"Ziri, I'm sorry I can't love you the way you want me to, but I do love you," she says.

"It's almost enough," he answers sadly.

At the cave mouth, Akiva can't hear them, but he can see. Karou allowing the White Wolf so close to her, and even touching him with the hands that can't touch Akiva. And he sees what _he_, Akiva, tithed for. Without flight, Thiago was verging on being ineffective, unless any seraphs decided to give up their advantage and challenge him on the ground. Unlikely. Now, his legendary brutality will be unleashed full force. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the tenderness. No sense at all.

Karou steps back and Thiago takes to the air, swooping and diving easily, as if he has had wings all his life.

Karou returns to the caverns, passing Akiva, her expressive eyes brimming with unspoken words. Her fingertips brush him, then she's past and gone.

Morning continues to arrive, the dual armies stir, and today the human world will be shaken by the fury of angels and the wrath of beasts.

.

.

.

I hope you like my story. All thanks to Laini Taylor for these wonderful characters and this amazing world she has created.


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, this _sort_ of follows on from the previous chapter, but you'll see it doesn't quite. The edges are blurry and the timing is wrong. You'll also see I know nothing about technology.

**The Fury of Angels and the Wrath of Beasts**

Karou has tried to explain television to Akiva, but it has proven difficult. Nothing like it whatsoever exists in Eretz.

"A slim rectangular box that shows moving pictures and emits sound, and provides entertainment and information?" he echoed.

"It's a very powerful medium," Karous persisted. "Everyone has one. Or several. And then there's the internet... You can type in anything you want to know about, and what you're searching for comes up on the screen."

"How does it work? How does the information get there?" Akiva asked.

"Well, the signal comes through the air - or, um, through cables," Karou faltered. "Remember in Prague, when the waitress in the tea-shop had seen you and me flying even though she hadn't been there?"

In the tea-shop, all Akiva had seen was Karou. What waitress? Who?

"Mik would be able to explain much better than me," Karou said, but she didn't really want to call Mik over. Time alone with Akiva was precious, even if they weren't actually, technically alone, sitting amongst the hundreds of the rebel army.

Akiva didn't want Mik called over either, as they huddled in the lair beneath the Atlas mountains where their army was secreted.

Then in the morning The Dominion, a thousand-strong host of white-robed, beneficent splendid beings, hovered in the sky above the few hundred gaping, astonished humans who happened to be in the vicinity. Hover was all they did. Akiva and Thiago, together at the head of their combined forces, waited unseen, poised on a knife-edge for anything untoward, anything that would warrant the attack command, but nothing spurred them to issue it. The angel cohort had disappeared within minutes.

During the discussion afterwards, Akiva was afire with suspicion.

"They didn't do anything. What are they up to?" he asked. If Jael, with his unquenchable thirst for power, was still Emperor, surely the seraphim would have descended and wreaked havoc.

Thiago was no more trusting of the seraphs' inaction.

"Today was nothing but an aerial display," he muttered. "Why?"

"Could the Dominion be buying time?" Karou suggested.

"Perhaps," Akiva replied. "But I don't see why they would need to. Jael was told by Razgut, the Fallen, that many people on Earth would worship the Seraphim as Gods. The Host he has assembled here are the advance. He has imagined that all they need to do is sing to be accepted as miraculous by any who see them. The true Seraph army isn't here yet. Jael will have any number of strategies to conquer Earth, and he is confident it can be achieved without much military expenditure on his part."

"Sing?" Karou mused. She hadn't had a religious upbringing but she was well aware of the divinity attributed to angels through hymn.

"If the Seraph Emperor realizes the power of singing, all he needs to do is harness the internet and television, and he will reach millions upon millions, and convince them that he is sent by God to act on God's behalf. He can persuade the faithful to idolatry of himself," she breathed. "He'll have three-quarters of Earth's population on his side immediately, falling on their knees to pray to him."

"This internet, then, this television - how can we access it, and harness it to combat his untruth?" Akiva asked.

"Mik," Karou said, instantly. "Mik knows techie stuff. Well, he'll know how we can do this."

So Mik was summoned after all, and he nodded intently.

"I have my laptop. All I need is connectivity. I can hijack someone else's as long as I can get reception."

This was a bi-lingual conversation, as Thiago, Akiva and Karou spoke in Chimaera, while Mik and Karou talked in Czech. She translated, but Thiago and Akiva were none the wiser. Luckily, the truck Mik and Zuzana had driven to the desert city only days ago still had plenty of petrol. Enough to get to a town and within range of somebody's wi-fi.

"I need to set up an ID... I can hack into a broadcast channel... we should have a visual - who will speak for us? …" Mik was saying, his clever, clever mind already working through possibilities. He needed to denounce angels, and soon.

"Maybe I should have you on screen, Akiva?" he suggested. Maybe not. Even with his wings glamoured invisible, Akiva looked unearthly.

"Karou?" She had blue hair, which could cause large sections of the population to question her credibility.

Thiago was out of the question with his eerily perfect face, white hair almost waist-length, and the hard, black, keratin claws on his fingertips.

Zuzana it would be, grinning with importance. The marionette dancer who told stories with her body would tell a story with words.

"Just a minute," Karou frowned, chewing on her lip. "There's the not-so-little issue of language to negotiate. Zuze only speaks Czech, although of course I can coach her in Arabic. But I'm guessing no-one in Eretz, except possibly Razgut, if he hasn't been executed, can speak any human language?"

"Not that I know of," Akiva said, adding, "Razgut couldn't possibly appear as a messenger. Anyone who saw him would be instantly ill."

"So maybe that's the reason they haven't started making any demands yet. They can't communicate!" Karou said triumphantly. "We've got the advantage!"

"All the more reason to move quickly," Thiago said.

So now they're planning the trip into town.

Of course Mik needs to go, as he is the one with the technical know-how, not to mention the only one who can legally drive. Karou needs to go so that she will know what's happening, and to translate. Akiva and Thiago need to go as they are the leaders of the two forces opposing the Seraphim. Also, they need to go because each seeks to monitor the other's interactions with Karou. In the truck's back seat they sit leaden, both wishing the other not present. It's different though - Akiva _hates_ Thiago, while Thiago just wishes he had been full-grown when Karou was Madrigal, or that when Karou had come to the ruined Loramendi Akiva hadn't already broken her heart. These wishes are futile.

The nearest town isn't so far, and Mik stops to check whether he can piggyback onto a frequency. He can. His fingers fly as he tries to find a way into Aljazeera, the international news medium broadcast via satellite.

Newsflash! Newsflash!

There is already an interruption to normal programming.

Crowding around the screen, the envoys of the resistance see that the Dominion has gotten onto the worldwide web ahead of them. It appears they've tuned in halfway through a transmission.

A compelling, charismatic voice announces that the end if the world is nigh, that the time is now.

"Judgement Day is upon you. Eternal glory awaits the pure and the sanctified and the forgiven. We have descended from Heaven to bring an end to suffering, to bestow grace and goodwill - but we bear a vital warning. The Devil raises an army to follow us here, and his ways are temptation and deceit. Be not trustful of beasts and monsters. Harbour not the enemy, or the most grievous suffering will be visited upon you. The enemy will be known by his _deviance._"

Karou is the only one who understands the Arabic voiceover, but she translates quickly. She, Akiva and Thiago exchange uncertain glances.

"Do not think to open your doors to the Beasts! Do not fall prey to their deceit. Do not offer succour or alms, and above all, guard your womenfolk!"

There is a face on the screen as these words are uttered, but it is not a seraph whose face has been sliced in half by a hideous scar, neither is it purple and bloated. It is an angel as beautiful as most of them are.

"Nachal," Akiva says, slowly, as he knows this face. Knows Nachal.

Nachal is delivering a message, somehow in Arabic. Razgut must have tutored him, Karou thinks grimly, not just in language, but in the lore of the Christian bible.

"The Beasts are ungovernable. Gentle Earth - take warning. We, the Seraphim, are here to protect and honour you. There is no honour amongst brutes. Behold - the savagery visited by a monster upon the seraph nurse who tended and cared for him. Look ye all and see - with cruelty and violence the heavenly angel was ravished by the diabolical and rampant goat - "

A new image appears on the little laptop screen. It's fuzzy.

"Their aggression knows no bounds! They have neither compassion nor mercy!" the voice is raised as the image clears.

"Peaceable denizens of earth - join us in the uprising! The beasts will attack your women! Gaze upon this _abomination!_" the narrator shouts. "See the cursed offspring of an unholy mating! A brute attacked a seraph woman and look at the foul half-thing that is the ungodly result!"

Along with most of the world, Mik, Zuzana, Karou, Akiva and Thiago are witness to what the screen shows. Karou shoves her fist in her mouth to prevent from crying out. Akiva's restraint fails him and the sound from him is a strangled moan. Thiago swallows whatever was on his tongue in a muted howl. Despite low resolution and visual static preventing absolute clarity, there can be seen two tall, muscular seraphim holding between them a captive. Nearly as tall as they are, she's a female figure, slender, fine, head aloft though downcast beneath the weight of broad heavy horns that seem to spring from her head like the devil's own. Beneath the slight tunic she wears, her legs from knee-height downwards become furry, melded by some dread curse into the hindlimbs and hooves of a cloven animal. Behind her lurk long, dark wings.

She is delicate and elegant. She is lithe and etheric. She is _Kirin_. Gone from the world - yet here now, imprisoned by the angels.

Akiva sees in her his lost love. Thiago sees his lost people. Karou sees her lost self.

And the voice emanating from the transmission is telling the listening public that a woman with horns and hooves and wings is the product of a vicious, unconsensual sexual encounter perpetrated because of the inherent savagery of the beasts. The world will be in an uproar with this horrifying information.

But each of the three flight-capable observers want to break into the seraph hideout and commit murder, to free the graceful, lovely creature just now displayed. All of them want to rescue her because she is no abomination. To each of them she impossibly represents Madrigal.

It won't be easy, because to start with, they don't know where the Host are hiding themselves.

"An assembly of more than a thousand isn't easy to conceal," Thiago states.

"They'll need fires for cooking, and they'll need to be near water," from Akiva. "If we had maps we could plot the area and send out searchers."

"I can do maps," Mik says quickly.

Karou's listening, but at the edge of her imagination a clue lurks. Tendrils of her mind reach for it, chase it, take hold.

"Akiva - you're really warm!" she exclaims suddenly.

"Warm?" he repeats, eyeing her.

"Yes! Mik, Mik, this might be crazy, but Akiva's body temperature is higher than a human's. Hundreds, or even thousands of seraphim would give off quite a bit of heat, wouldn't they? Can you find any sort of satellite mapping that might show concentrations of heat, somewhere in Morocco or Algeria where there aren't any large towns?"

"Worth a try," Mik muses, already busy. "Ask Akiva what speed the army would travel at, and how far they could expect to fly, in logistical terms, to arrive where they were this morning and not be too tired to start fighting if they needed to. We can work out a rough radius so I have a starting point to conduct a search..."

Thiago watches keenly. Never in his life would he have expected to find himself General of an army, but he is a formidable soldier. Courageous, strong, and mentally acute, the requirements demanded of a leader are not beyond him. Just, under these circumstances, anathema. Well, no. The Kirin were a gentle and harmonious tribe, and ordinarily one of their number would not will harm to any living creature, but his existence has never been normal. Hearing Akiva and Karou speak back in the caves of a better life for all, of peace and tolerance and co-operation, these are the things he yearns for, too. The only way any of them can envisage to realize their dream is to kill the killers. Destabilize the forces, decapitate the fighting machines. With the armies leaderless, new thinking can emerge. Without hate being used as a rallying cry by the power-hungry, its power can be dismantled. The Chimaera have already lost their tyrant, though they don't know it. Thiago is still needed as a figurehead for the soldiers to follow until the Seraph Emperor can be destroyed and his lies counteracted.

So Thiago listens very closely, although the warm remark shook him. He's noticed the higher temperature of the angels, is aware of the heat they generate, but having Karou so confidently make a declaration that hints at intimacy hurts a little. The last few days of being around her and Akiva has shown him their unassailable bond, and he knows now that Karou loves Akiva as deeply and fiercely and truly as Madrigal did. He holds respect for her chosen mate, because Akiva's devotion to Karou is unquestionable, and because when he was Ziri, Akiva saved his life. But the way Karou's eyes shine for Akiva makes Thiago's loneliness cut keen as a blade.

Meanwhile, Mik has found something, and the talk turns to rescue missions.

The saviors will have to be from amongst the ranks of the Misbegotten, without Thiago, because the White Wolf couldn't possibly pass into the angel encampment undetected. There is nothing in particular to make the Misbegotten stand out amongst their former fellows. Akiva can glamour himself with invisibility, as he at least is well-known. Prince of Bastards, scourge of the Enemy, though he is that no longer. Liraz will be sent, with her cold and swift fury. Niv and Shamir. Rivka and Pazi. Tonight. They will reconnoitre, and see what can be done. They will return without the Kirin woman and with a plan, or with the Kirin woman.

"How can it be? How can they have her?" Karou asks, casting her mind back, counting years. "They kidnapped a baby from the caves, all those years ago when they killed most of our people?"

"Chimaera were stolen for slavery as well. She must have been brought up to be a slave," Akiva says heavily.

"They stopped at nothing, in their brutality and their hatred," Thiago says. "Chimaera have been their pain thralls, too. My own father was one, and so was Brimstone, until they took up arms."

Akiva is silent, because he was raised to think of the Chimaera as dumb animals, belligerent and stupid, and yet he has gained knowledge of them since Madrigal that has shown him the opposite. That many of the Chimaera are loving, intelligent, honest, loyal, strong, brave, loving. _Loving_. Again, again, he feels sick at the perfidy of his upbringing. But Thiago? Thiago _executed_ Madrigal. Thiago epitomizes everything Akiva was taught to hate about the untamed, beastly races of beasts. This Thiago sits at Karou's right hand and is favored with her quick speech, the blink of her jet eyes, a rare half-smile, withdrawn as quickly as it is bestowed. Akiva burns to know why his incandescent Karou will even countenance the monster Thiago's presence, never mind the clawed fingers the White Wolf has just placed on her arm.

The exchange of glances between Karou and the White Wolf at the mention of the Warlord and Brimstone, _Brimstone_, is poignant and excludes everyone else.

But at hand, there are other pressing matters.

In the truck, back to camp, Karou sits next to Mik, and she pulled Akiva alongside on the bench seat. Her thigh touches his. She talks to Mik, but she and Akiva both feel the burn.

Preparations need to be made for tonight's foray, with contingency plans, too. The mood of the two growling armies needs to be assessed, and addressed. Food needs to be organised. Amongst all the activity, Thiago finds Karou binding her hands.

"Are you hurt?" he asks quickly.

"No. This is because I am the healer. So I can help if any of the Seraphim team are injured tonight," she says. They won't know for hours if any of the rescue team are injured. But her hamsas are covered.

And she goes to Akiva, about to embark on his perilous mission.

"Karou?" he murmurs as she approaches him getting ready with his Misbegotten siblings. Niv, Shamira, Pazi and Rivka arming themselves, Liraz in her withering haughtiness strapping a belt about her hips which will sheathe a foot-long knife down her thigh.

"Be safe," the blue-haired girl whispers to the dark angel. "Be careful. Come back to me."

He takes Karou by an arm, draws her aside, back, along, aside, until trees obscure them from the rest of the company.

"I will be careful. I will always be careful, now," he assures her. "For years my wrecked heart was half-dead and useless but these days I have every reason to protect it, since I've given its ownership to you."

"Remember that. No unnecessary fighting, no risks - " Karou pleads. Her fingers creep to his chest, flatten there across his pectoral muscles and he looks down to see what she has done with her palms. The bandages. His hands cover hers and imprison them.

"No risks, my love," he whispers. "Kiss me once now, and promise me another on my return."

She could crane upwards and he could bend down, but Karou decides not to bother wrestling with the height difference. Lightly she springs, straight at him. Akiva grunts with the impact, but he's very strong, and she doesn't weigh much. She presses her chest to his, wraps him in slender thighs and arms that hold him much more tightly than a tithing clamp could, and gives him the benediction of her soft lips. He groans lightly, right into her mouth, wishing he could lay her down amongst the mosses and ferns and show her his love. There isn't time. If he lived another thousand years and so did she, it wouldn't be time enough to show her his love.

"Soon. Return soon."

Her quiet order carries more authority than a command from a higher-ranking officer.

"I will. With your cousin," he promises, and regretfully disentangles the two of them.

With the beat of wings rushing away into the sky, Karou is forced to wait. Issa soothing her, Zuzana distracting her, Thiago pacing and growling.

And it seems the Host are so sure of themselves, their triumph and their victory in this land of humans, that they have barely bothered to defend their position. Their leader, whoever it is now, must already be picturing himself God of this new realm, with barely needing to lift a finger to secure his sovereignty. Campfires are dotted around in the vicinity Mik identified, with only a few sentries, and with the majority of the company unarmed as they sit at their fires, eating and talking. A central pavilion indicates where the complacent leader surely rests, no doubt partaking of any luxury that can have been afforded either by the locality, or flown through the portal.

Akiva divides his team into pairs with an instruction to make observations and convene again with a report. Upon receiving the reports it is as he first thought. The army below are relaxing, and conversing. In Eretz, they saw nothing but endless strife and hardship - here on earth they believe nothing can challenge them. Yet. The humans will bow and praise and adore, and the beast army is depleted to the point of insignificance. As soon as any revenants show up, if they show up, the Seraph leader and his followers will extinguish the paltry threat.

Niv reports that the Kirin woman is held in one of the tents, with only a brace of guards. He gives a quick description of them, and Akiva orders that Niv and Rivka kill the two, silently, with blades to their throats. He regrets the necessity for this, but knows that if he spares them, rendering them unconscious while he spirits away their captive, the guards will be put to death anyway. A slow death, drawn out, involving humiliation and agony.

Then Niv and Rivka will pose as sentries while Akiva and Liraz, invisible, enter the tent and liberate the young woman. If she is bound, or drugged, or asleep, or disabled in any way, they can carry her. Pazi and Shamir will act as lookouts.

The crackles of the fires and the hum of talk makes it all easier, the lack of vigilance enables their daring, and Akiva has slashed a great rip in the back wall of the tent to admit himself and Liraz without causing any disturbance amongst the camp occupants. Asleep, the prisoner is all limbs and wings, lithe and lovely in the tiny yellow glow of lamplight. Liraz's hand clasps the woman's mouth before it can emit a sound. There is someone else in the tent - a seraph woman who gasps in shock, and who must be silenced. She sits up, lips opening to scream, and Akiva registers facts lightning fast. The woman is older than most soldiers. Her hands reach, not for weapons, but towards the Kirin. Even in this lack of light, the backs of her fingers are pale. No marks! She carries more weight on her frame than a soldier. A fraction of hesitation gives him the time to process that this Seraph is not a fighter. She's a civilian. And the Kirin's eyes, wide with terror, have turned to the older woman. Some sort of carer? Possibly. Of course. There isn't time to weigh up ideas and chances and outcomes - there is only action. Akiva's swift hand effectively gags the Seraph woman before her scream can alert any of the cohort, and he has lifted her, ducking through the ragged gap his blade made in the canvas.

They take to the sky, the team of six and the cargo of two, without any below having realized what just transpired in their very midst.

Half an hour and many miles later, Akiva releases his captive's mouth. He has been steadily speaking to her, telling her she is under no threat and will not be harmed. Apart from an initial struggle, which he believed was more to determine his strength than to attempt an escape, she has remained calm.

"What do you want with us?" she asks as his hand slips away.

"We want nothing from _you_, we sought only your companion, but we couldn't leave you to bear the Emperor's rage," he answers.

"Alaya? She has done nothing. It's true she's a creature of base origin, but that is due to the wickedness of the beast that sired her. She can't help her lineage."

"_Base origin_? Is that what you believe?" Akiva growls, though he understands that the woman is trying to protect the Kirin.

"It's not her fault. She represents no threat, despite what she looks like."

"What she _doesn't_ look like is the offspring of an angel and a - what was being claimed? A _goat? _She is Chimaera, and that's why we came for her."

"No, no. She's not Chimaera. I'm her mother. She's not a spy or a soldier," the woman says. "Just unfortunate. She can't tell you anything. Let her go."

"You're _not_ her mother. And what do you mean - a spy?" Akiva asks, curious, suddenly wary.

"I _am _her mother. I raised her. But yes, I admit, she's my adopted daughter. You think because she's Chimaera she knows secrets? She doesn't. She's lived amongst the Seraphim all her life. She's never even seen another Chimaera. You can look at her hands - there is no devil's mark upon them. Release her," the woman pleads.

Yards away, in the black dense night, he can hear Liraz, or rather, he can hear her silence. She's saying nothing. They have hours to go yet, before the dawn and before they arrive at their destination. He would do well to save his energy for flying, as the woman he carries is heavy.

Back at the camp, when he alights Karou is waiting, Thiago at her side. As he and Liraz walk forward, they stare through what little pale light the single Earth moon and the myriad of stars throw on their little patch of forest, the green oak grove they roost under. The Kirin woman, Alaya, appears exhausted, and Liraz supports her. But even stumbling, with her head lolling tiredly and her lustrous eyes struggling to open, Alaya is breath-taking in her lissomness. Akiva is arrested, his gaze swinging back in distress to Karou to see how she is reacting to this vision so like Madrigal, when Alaya begins to tip and fold, falling from the single arm Liraz holds her with. A flash blurs past before Akiva can direct anybody to help and in disgust he sees that the White Wolf is there, murmuring, cradling, lifting the fainting Kirin.

"No!" Akiva barks sharply, starting forward, letting go of the Seraph woman he has just borne from the enemy settlement. He'll rip Thiago's arms off, never mind any truce or agreement or pact, rather than allow the brute anywhere near something, some_one_ so precious. But Thiago is holding Alaya with true gentleness and Karou has stepped closer, watching the scene with liquid eyes and her mouth tremulous.

"Oh, _Ziri,_" she murmurs, heartfelt, startling Akiva into a memory of the handsome Kirin soldier he had once seen sleeping next to her. Akiva had felt an instantaneous jealousy of Ziri at the prospect, the seeming possibility that he had lain with Karou, though afterwards he'd rebuked himself, recalling that they'd both been clothed. He'd tried to forget about it, but later he'd been ashamed of the relief mingled with sorrow at Karou's misery when she'd told him that Ziri had died. Then the night before they all came through the portal from Eretz to Earth, Akiva had remembered Ziri again, on discovering that he, Akiva, was not Karou's first. Had she loved Ziri? Had Ziri loved her?

And now, Karou seems to be invoking Ziri in a sad, faraway voice, gazing down on only the second of her race she has ever seen. How can she allow Thiago's monster hands on that slender creature? When Akiva braved capture, torture and death to slip into the Warlord's stronghold in search of Madrigal, that long ago night that took them both to the requiem grove, Thiago had torn her dress. That had been the least of the crimes he had committed against her. Even the way Thiago _looked_ at Karou had been a crime. And now the White Wolf had another Kirin female to look at.

Clenched jaw, Akiva glowers, willing Karou to stand aside, which she does, but it's to walk with Thiago as he takes Alaya to a tent.

Akiva has vowed he will never kill another Chimaera, but Akiva determines to break that vow. He will kill Thiago.

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I'm working on more of this but I don't have a plan as to where it's going so don't expect anything linear.

Thanks Laini Taylor.


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